


Looking Back

by Myliaa



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26404318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myliaa/pseuds/Myliaa
Summary: Immediately following incineration, Randy finds Emmett in the place between, checking in on his old team.
Kudos: 14





	Looking Back

“Hey, Emmett.”

“Hi, Randy.”

“I... kind of got incinerated too.”

:(

Randall Marijuana scratches the base of one of his horns, making an apologetic face at his old friend. 

The sounds of Blaseball still ring in his ears. Shifting images of the game overlay upon his current environment, making it hard to make out any distinct features. The actual landscape seems reminiscent of the Hellmouth stadium for a moment… then the ground shifts and rights itself, and the Rhys Trombone Memorial Food Court and Equestrian Center appears. 

Then it’s the snow of The Pocket, the polar opposite of the Hellmouth that he only was able to play a few games in. 

Then, the Spies’ stadium, and the overlay matches up for a moment, though the afterimages of players still shimmer in his vision.

Then, his old apartment in Hellmouth, trashed as usual, albeit without the permanent smell baked into every corner of the room.

Then…

“Is this Minecraft?” Randy asks, bewildered.

As he says it, the murky surroundings solidify and become less ephemeral. The voxel landscape comes into sharper focus, and Randy realizes that he knows this place.

“You can’t seriously be about to tell me that the afterlife looks like the house that ‘bella and I built during siestas.”

Emmett’s laugh crackles out from their speakers, with a synthesized voice following it.

“You tell me. We all see something different. You can change it, if you focus really hard.”

Randy closes his eyes and scrunches his brow, picturing his apartment again. The surroundings slowly lose their definition, before shifting back to the familiar walls. Opening his eyes, he walks over to the futon against the wall and nudges it with his foot. Finding resistance, he flops down and puts his hands behind his head, kicking his feet up on a coffee table.

“Where are you right now?” Emmett asks, their monitor turning to watch as Randy settles in. “Seems comfortable.”

“My apartment. Needed some familiarity, yeah? This is pretty new to me.”

“Your new place in Breckenridge?”

“Naw, not that one. Barely spent any time in there, y’know? I’m kicking it in my old mess of a flat. Feels like home.”

Emmett dips their head, and the various emoticon faces that define their expression vanish for a second as the monitor goes black. A couple moments pass, before a simple :) appears.

“Now I am here too,” their vocaloid software creaks out. “And you’re right.”

Randy scootches over on the futon, and Emmett sits besides him. A comfortable silence falls, with Randy absentmindedly chewing on his lip. The room is about how he remembers it, though the longer he looks, the more washed-out the colors seem. Swirling in and out of the room and flickering beyond the walls, Randy still sees the Blaseball game he was recently in still raging on. The Spies seem to be winning, though it’s a little hard to tell.

“Always felt a little painful, how we always had to keep playing. Y’know, after an…” Randy trails off, playing with his hands. “When we lose someone. Never have time to grieve. Didn’t know the Hands all that well yet, though. I ‘spose they won’t hurt as much as I did when you, uh. Yeah.”

“I missed you too, Randy.”

Randy leans over and nudges Emmett with his shoulder. “Good to see you again, bud. The internet cafe they set up is rad and all, but it could never be the same.”

Emmett’s face flashes ^.^ as they punch Randy in the forearm with a quick sequence of cheerful beeps.

An ephemeral ball flies through the wall and out the other, before coming speeding back. It’s tricky, but Randy manages to glimpse the scoreboard, showing the Houston Spies having just won the game.

“Looks like they ain’t doing so well without me. Poor guys..”

“Imagine how I felt when I saw Sutton emerge onto the field. I wish I had been able to hear your reactions.”

“Damnit, Emmett, you have no idea. It was chaos. You were, like, one of the best of us, yo! And to have that horrible goose emerge with a cricket bat and start losing its mind at us, I just, I’m trying to like, play? And grieve? At once! And, and this, this thing keeps honking at us, then suddenly stops and like, starts to play? And it turns out it’s like, this village piloting a goose avatar and damnit, Emmett. You should’ve been there,” Randy says while gesticulating wildly.

“Don’t tire yourself out. Your usual pastime is harder to make happen here,” Emmett says with a -.-; on their screen.

“...but, like, not impossible, right? Right?”

“Probably not. Takes a lot of concentration, though.”

“Hell, I’ll manage it,” Randy says with a wink. “In a bit. Still rockin’ my last high. Glad that came with me. This wouldn’t be as easy to handle without it.”

Emmett returns the wink and emits quiet static for a moment, before stopping. Randy raises an eyebrow in response, prompting them to continue.

“This is more of a waiting room, really. There’s more beyond here. Most people don’t come back here. You can any time, of course! But I’ve been spending a lot of time here, because of something only I can do.”

“Whaddya mean?”

Emmett’s face flickers into a prideful look. “Even here, I’m still Emmett Internet. I can show you wherever you want, back in where we came from. Whoever you want. It’s a good way to process; people like to make sure their friends are okay.”

“You mean, like, I can tune in and check on our team? And Hellmouth?” Randy says, eyes lighting up. 

“Just tell me what you want to see,” Emmett says with a ;).

“Shoot, Em, hit me with… Alayn… No no, wait, show me Sutton. That sounds hilarious,” Randy cackles. “Wait! No, no! Show me my cat!”

Emmett’s face disappears and their monitor turns to static, lighting up the room for just a second until an image pops into existence on the screen. Tinny sound comes through Emmett’s speakers as a cardboard box atop a robotic vacuum comes into focus. Inside, four kittens are happily mewling, tumbling over each other and bumping into the sides of the box as it moves around the room.

“Oh hell yeah! That’s my cat,” Randy says, nodding happily. “Gosh, gonna miss that guy. I hope ‘bella adopts it. Or Elvis adopts them. Oh, oh, show me Elvis!”

Emmett’s screen flashes once more, and a lion comes into screen. It is standing, staring out a window, with an almost solemn pose. Outside the window, the fury of the Hellmouth roars ever more, in scenery that Randy recognizes. Elvis is quiet, but what sounds like quiet hiccuping echoes around the room.

“Eh? Can you, like, spin the camera, Emmett? I think someone’s there.”

The camera orbits around Elvis, revealing a figure that was previously concealed within the silhouette of the lion. A woman clutches at his fur, crying into the great beast’s mane. Her tawny hair is disorderly tucked into a Sunbeam hat resting slightly askew on her head. Her back jumps with every hiccup, and Randy feels a pang in his chest.

“Shoot, ‘bella,” he says. “We made all sorts of plans. To keep getting high and playing Minecraft, even with me living in Breckenridge, y’know? It was nice to be in the same room but we could’ve still done it. I… We can’t do that now, huh.”

Emmett reaches a hand out and grabs Randy’s, giving it a quick squeeze, with the image of Alaynabella Hollywood staying on their face. Randy’s eye twitches a little bit as he scans all over the scene, committing it to memory.

“I wish I could’ve gone out playin’ next to her.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t blame you. Feedback happens,” Emmett’s voice echoes, the image fuzzing a little bit as they speak.

“Yeah, I just. I’unno. We both agreed, to like, still be Hollyweed, yeah? Even if I was on the Hands.”

Emmett shakes their head. “She will still be half of Hollyweed. Until the day the umps call her name, and after.”

“I ‘spose.”

Silence falls, and the two sit for a while as Randy watches the screen. Eventually, he stirs.

“Can you show me the other ‘beams, Em?”

The screen flickers between the others. Nagomi is sitting in a library, with her human eye closed. Her shadowy tentacles keep grabbing books off the walls and flipping through them as the left side of her face scans through each tome before tossing it aside. 

“Wonder what she’s looking for,” Randy says as the screen changes.

Igneus and Malik are quietly talking as Malik stirs a large metal pot with one hand. Around the corner of the kitchen, Nerd is quietly polishing one of their guns on the couple’s dining table while Dudley oozes in a generally dejected manner.

“Never really could get a good read on Duds’ emotions. Hope he’s doing alright.”

The camera begins to move quickly, tracking a white blur as honks peak Emmett’s speakers. Sutton Bishop knocks over suits of armor and priceless vases as it tears through Sigmund Castillo, making a terrible mess and being a horrible goose.

“Well, ‘least Sutton doesn’t seem to be that bothered. Horrid creature. Gonna miss it.”

Sandoval’s eyes are hardly visible underneath a blaseball cap. Seemingly hard at work, they usher various cretins of the Hellmouth across a crosswalk, while traffic literally roars behind them. 

“Hard at work, as always. Good ol’ Sandy.”

Zack Sanders’ flower faces the sun, all eyes wide open. This isn’t unusual, but the unmoving intensity and lack of martial arts poses during the action certainly is. Next to her, Bickle gardens away, enjoying the sunlight in a different way than her fellow.

“Huh. Didn’t know those two hung out. I bet they’re pretty happy with how buddy-buddy the Flowers have been with us, lately.”

Lars stares down Miguel James in the pitching cage that they often practiced in before games. Well past their usual practice time, they both seem to be locked in an intense pitching power struggle. Blaseballs rotate around Lars’ head, sometimes jerking forward slightly before igniting and returning to their original position.

“Wow, that’s... About as intense as usual, actually. Those two are wild.”

Alexander Horne is passed out asleep on a bed too small for their body. The air shimmers around them, their Hellmouth energy radiating heat in the comparatively-cooler San Francisco. They wear a brand-new Lovers uniform that has been haphazardly torn down into a crop top.

“Oh, Horne. I’ll never forget that first Grand Slam.”

With that, Emmett’s face flickers back to a neutral expression and their vocaloid voice sounds once more.

“They’ll be okay.”

Randy barks out a laugh, throwing his head back. “Okay? They won’t be okay!” he says, grinning with a mouthful of sharp teeth. “They’re the... We’re the Hellmouth friggin’ Sunbeams.”

He reaches out and pulls Emmett into a hug.

“We’re gonna be great.”

Emmett’s monitor goes black as their speakers fizzle. Randy releases them from the hug and grasps their shoulders.

“I’m ready to move on, see what else there is to see, see what passes for weed in these parts, and see if I can track down Rhys. Wanna come with, old friend?”

Emmett chirps happy noises, a familiar jingle of assent.

“Then let’s go!”

:)


End file.
